1. Field of the Invention
This invention is related to a camera having a movable lens and a movable flash. The invention is more particularly related to a digital camera having a lens which can be aimed upwardly and/or downwardly relative to the body of the camera which has a flash which moves up and down with the movement of the lens.
2. Discussion of the Background
FIG. 1A illustrates a digital camera 200 having a camera body 202 and an imaging unit 204. The camera body 202 includes conventional features such as a shutter button 206, control buttons 208, and the imaging unit 204 includes a flash 212, a lens 214, and a flash sensor 216. Decorative lines 210a and 210b are in alignment on the camera body 204 and the imaging unit 204 in FIG. 1A.
FIG. 1B illustrates that the imaging unit 204 having the flash 212 and lens 214 can move upwardly relative to the camera body 202. Thus, the flash is always pointing towards the object which is being photographed.
A problem with the digital camera 200 illustrated in FIGS. 1A and 1B is that because the flash is located so close to the lens, a red-eye phenomenon may be present in images taken by the digital camera 200, resulting in people having unnatural red eyes in the photographs. Further, the inventors have noted that the arrangement illustrated in FIG. 1A may not allow a zoom lens to be used because such a zoom lens requires more physical space than the depth of the camera. Thus, a problem exists in designing a compact digital camera with a zoom lens which effectively prevents red-eye.
Accordingly, it is an object of the invention is to provide a digital camera in which the flash illuminates the object which is photographed.
It is another object of the invention to provide a digital camera having a lens which moves up and down relative to the camera body and has a flash which is synchronized with the movement of the lens.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a digital camera having a flash disposed within the camera body and a separate rotating imaging unit having a lens connected to the camera body, wherein rotation of the imaging unit and lens causes rotation of the flash within the camera body.
These and other objects are accomplished by a digital camera having a body, an image sensing section which is rotatably connected to the body, and a flash. The flash is connected to the image sensing section and rotatably disposed within the camera body such that when the image sensing section rotates, the flash also rotates. The range of rotation of the flash may be limited and not completely correspond to the range of motion of the image sensing section. The lens of the camera is preferably a zoom lens. As the zoom lens has a depth which may be longer than the depth of the camera, the zoom lens may rotate to point upwardly (or downwardly) so that when stored, the lens is less likely to become damaged.
In a first embodiment, the axis of rotation of the flash is the same as the axis of rotation of the image sensing section. However, other embodiments permit the image sensing section to have a different axis of rotation than the flash. In order to connect the axis of rotation of the image sensing section with the axis rotation of the flash, various mechanisms such as one or more gears or belt are used to rotatably connect the image sensing section with the flash.
In a preferred embodiment of the invention, a gear mechanism is used which has a two gears sharing an axis of rotation. The gears are connected to each other by a spring such that when a limit of the range of movement of the flash is reached, the spring allows relative movement between the two gears so that the image sensing section may continue to rotate, even when the flash can no longer rotate.